THE PARTY OF DEATH AND THE DEPRESSION:

King Karl: Think Karl Rove is losing on Social Security and Schiavo? Those are mere tactical skirmishes—he’s got a grander prize in mind. (John Heilemann, 4/04/05, New York)

The numbers are pretty striking. On Social Security, polls show support for George W. Bush’s position mired at under 40 percent, with 58 percent of Americans saying that the more they learn about his plan the less they like it. Meanwhile, an ABC poll last week reported that, by a 63 to 28 percent margin, the public favors the removal of Schiavo’s feeding tube—and that even Evangelicals are split down the middle on the question.

Not surprisingly, the Democratic reaction has been unalloyed glee—not least at the implication that Bush’s strategic supremo and deputy chief of staff may be fallible after all. Democrats in Congress charge that the Rove-ified Republicans’ Schiavo intervention unmasks the GOP as the party of big and intrusive government, while liberal strategists claim that the parade of blunders on Social Security suggests that the administration’s balding boy wonder has lost his populist touch. As New Democrat Network president Simon Rosenberg said to me the other day, “This is one of those times when you have to conclude that Rove isn’t as smart as people say.”

The Democrats’ jubilation is understandable, and even justified. But I also suspect it may turn out to be premature. Both Schiavo and Social Security are, for Rove, parts of a bigger puzzle: how to cement the fractious Republican coalition into a stable governing majority, one that advances the cause of a historic partisan realignment. Solving that puzzle inevitably poses knotty political challenges. But let’s remember, they’re the sort of challenges Democrats can only wish they had.

Not long ago, I had a chance to see Rove speak to an audience of conservative activists down in Washington. The speech was as revealing for what it left out as for what it included. Not once did Rove proclaim the importance of reducing the size and sphere of Washington’s purview. Not once did he echo Ronald Reagan’s famous line—which codified a fundamental verity of modern Republicanism—that “government isn’t the solution to our problems; government is our problem.” Instead, Rove rejected the party’s “reactionary” and “pessimistic” past, in which it stood idly by while “liberals were setting the pace of change and had the visionary goals.” Now, he went on, the GOP has seized the “mantle of idealism,” dedicating itself to “putting government on the side of progress and reform, modernization and greater freedom.” [...]

“On Social Security, we’re playing on our field,” [Grover] Norquist says. “What would a Democratic win be? The status quo! Not exactly exciting for the party of progressivism.”

More important, although Democrats, in my view, have been right as a matter both of principle and politics to fight Bush on Social Security, their stance leaves them open to attack. “Democrats did something really stupid by saying there’s not a problem,” argues Luntz. “They damaged their credibility and made themselves the party of No.” Or, as Rove put it in his speech, “they’re attempting to block reform,” he said. “The risk is that they’ll appear to be obstructionist, oppositional, and wedded to the past instead of the future—and that’s not a good place to be in American politics.”

REPUBLICANS KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING ON SCHIAVO (Noam Scheiber, 3/22/05, New Republic)

[T]hough polls suggest the public overwhelmingly approves of the Democrats' position, elections aren't generally referendums on single issues. The party that does well in an election is the one that voters deem to have better addressed their fundamental concerns. I'd argue that, in 2002 in 2004, that concern was security. Though polls showed vast majorities of Americans favored working through the United Nations in Iraq, being the candidate of the U.N. didn't help John Kerry because he never broke through on the security issue in some deeper emotional way. In fact, to the extent that Kerry constantly emphasized his willingness to work with our allies and the U.N., it probably hurt him more than it helped him, since his apparent deference to foreign countries underscored people's reservations about his willingness to defend our country.

The short story here is that embracing a popular issue can leave you on the wrong end of an electoral outcome if it reinforces suspicions people already have about you. Conversely, rejecting a popular position, as the Bushies did with respect to the U.N., can actually help you if it demonstrates your attentiveness to voters' fundamental concerns.

I think Democrats face a similar risk with respect to Schiavo. Since the 1960s, the party has tended to take a libertarian position on social issues like abortion and the right to die. As with the U.N. and alliances, polls show that these are overwhelmingly popular positions. Large majorities agree that the government should stay out of people's personal decisions even in socially conservative regions like the South. My concern is that, despite the public support for these individual positions, embracing them tends to reinforce deeper suspicions people have about Democrats--namely, that they're a bunch of moral relativists who can't be trusted to do what's right.

Similarly, the defense of the Social Security status quo shows them to be still wedded to the failed socialist experiment of the 20th century and not to be trusted with a modern economy.

N.B. Michael Burns, who sent the second piece, refers to it aptly as a "clue burst."

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 29, 2005 9:29 PM